Notice the spiciness.

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Political Insights from Jimmy Kimmel’s “Kill All Chinese”

Recently, Jimmy Kimmel is in hot water because one of the kid guests on the segment “Kids’ Table” said that “we should kill all Chinese” when asked what if the United States cannot pay back $1.3 trillion debt to China. After that, the Chinese community in US. have lunched a series of protest activities, reaching the pitch last Saturday when the protest of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” took place in 27 cities across the nation.

Hey, that mouse is innocent!

To be honest, as someone who has a sense of humor, I don’t really think Kimmel is a raciest. He was just making fun of what the kids said. Like “This is an interesting idea” doesn’t always mean “interesting.” For example, My friends and I brought one Indian friend to have Dim Sum with us. And we ordered the “infamous” chicken feet…

After we “forced” him to try on one, we asked:

“Hey, how’s it? Not bad, right? :p”

“….Right, very interesting.” (Although his face looked twisted…lol)

So you know, sometimes “interesting” in English is used to show sort of disagreement. I think Kimmel just tried to make the statement of “kill all Chinese” less intense. He also commented “well, this has been an interesting edition of “Kids’ Table” , the <Lord of The Flies> edition” to mock the kids’ dark speeches. If you google the book <Lord of the Flies>, you’d find that actually it described the brutal human nature through conversations of “naive-like” kids.

So what’s the problem?

I actually think the Chinese community in the US wants to draw more attention from the mainstream society here. I saw many comments state that if ABC replaced “Chinese” to “Jewish,” it would not even dare to broadcast the show.

Well, Jewish did very well in educating Americans about their heritage and values. But I think all of that is based on the economic and political influence held by this community. If you look at the data, up to now, there are only 3 Chinese members of Congress in the US. If people’s opinions can be influenced by media, did you see any famous Chinese American star? I only know one, which is Bruce Lee and he died many years ago~ From the media exposure, I think Chinese people are very quiet, too quiet so that others can just ignore.

So from my point of view, the protest of <Jimmy Kimmel Live> serves to a political purpose because it’s a good opportunity for Chinese Americans to give their voice to the mainstream. In the end, it’s not a war of morality; it’s a game of obtaining political power. If it’s not Kimmel, the community will raise their voice anyway. There are more than 4 millions Chinese Americans now, the biggest proportion of Asian community in the US. As time goes by, the need for the acceptance from the main society will be inevitably growing. Just like how black community gains the respect and rights, I think the Chinese or the Asians here will undergo the same process. It might be painful but there is always a chance if they keep fighting.

In the end of today’s blog, I want to post one more video “Undying Chinese” that I found on Youtube:

So if you feel insulted by a joke, then joke it back!! That’s how we play! :p